Our View: Illinois, where democracy goes to die? Let’s hope not

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Journal Star

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Posted May. 31, 2014 at 7:59 PM
Updated May 31, 2014 at 8:00 PM

Posted May. 31, 2014 at 7:59 PM
Updated May 31, 2014 at 8:00 PM

With regard to a citizen initiative to restore honest, fair elections to Illinois, we knew that it would be rough going, that those in power threatened by any change to the status quo would pull out all the stops to prevent voters from ever having a say.

Reformers hope to take the map-making out from behind closed doors and away from the politicians, who repeatedly have proven themselves incapable of crafting legislative boundaries that don’t pre-determine the winners, that have produced some of the most gerrymandered districts in the nation, that discourage competitive contests, that overtly favor incumbents, that unduly benefit their guys at the expense of the other guys. It’s a bipartisan affliction. Illinois Democrats are the guilty party of the moment. The good-government types want voters to change that through constitutional amendment.

Alas, the Yes for Independent Maps campaign has run into its first major roadblock, with the State Board of Elections finding just 45 percent of its petition signatures — in a small sample of the some 507,000 submitted — to be valid for getting the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot. Almost 60 percent, or nearly 299,000 legitimate John Hancocks, are required.

Obviously this does not bode well, though organizers dispute the Board of Elections count and the process. The reasons the signatures were initially questioned vary — petition signatures that don’t quite look like those on voter registration cards, home address discrepancies, married vs. maiden names, scanned petitions that were difficult to read — but campaign leaders contend that most are easily explained and can be corrected. Decades can pass between registering to vote and signing a petition. Many signatures were obtained over the winter from hurried commuters at outdoor transit stations, under conditions not always conducive to good penmanship.

A certain number of signatures are expected to get tossed, but Independent Maps says professionals in these constitutional endeavors were hired who vetted the signatures at multiple stages as they were being gathered. They say the process is a departure from past practice — county clerks, not Elections Board employees, used to verify all of the signatures, not just a sample — and that it has been unnecessarily rushed and not uniformly applied, with ballot certification not until August. They just need a little extra time to validate the challenged signatures. (On Friday they got it, with the Elections Board voting 5-3 for a June 6 extended deadline; June 13 had been requested.) We’ll see.

The not-so-subtle implication here is that the fix is in, and that the mysterious hand of House Speaker Michael Madigan — who’s also chairman of the state’s Democratic Party — is manipulating matters in some way. We can’t vouch for that, though it’s fair to say Madigan is no fan of the effort. His allies — specifically his former legal counsel — have already filed a lawsuit to thwart both this and a legislator term limit ballot initiative championed by GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner. All who call Illinois home can be forgiven their cynicism. The federal prison system may not actually reserve jail cells for former Illinois governors and other assorted elected officials, but who could blame Uncle Sam if he did? And so a lot of people affiliated with state government get tangled in that web of doubt and suspicion, sometimes fairly, sometimes not.

Page 2 of 2 - We’re inclined, at this juncture, to give the process the benefit of the doubt. Local Maps leader Brad McMillan acknowledges that “if we didn’t have 298,000 (plus) solid signatures, we don’t deserve to be on the ballot,” but adds, “We firmly believe we belong on the ballot.” Illinois makes it harder than most to bring a constitutional amendment, says McMillan. “If our due process rights are violated, we’ll go to federal court ... We’re not going to sit idly by.”

We’d say this:

We hope this doesn’t come down to dueling lawsuits. A good-government Legislature would have put this on the ballot itself. There may be a record number of statewide ballot referendums this fall — on voters’ and victims’ rights, a minimum wage increase, an added tax on millionaires, even whether prescription drug plans should cover birth control, most if not all of them politically inspired — but Madigan & Co. would draw the line at this substantive, legitimate issue? Really? Who can mistake the irony in politicians from a city known to have resurrected long-dead voters challenging the existence of living, breathing voters now?

As we have written before, if Illinoisans really want to take back control of a state government that has been anything but competent and ethical, nothing else on the November ballot is more important than trying to achieve independent redistricting. Eyes glaze over, it doesn’t sink in, and we get that. But McMillan is correct that “this strikes at the heart of democracy in Illinois.” Readers can judge for themselves why democracy is so threatening to Illinois’ political leadership.

If this effort falls short of the ballot, well, not only would that be sorely disappointing, but let’s just say no one could be faulted for concluding that Illinois is just an irredeemably hopeless place.